The almost unthinkable is to happen: Donald Trump has won the Republucan nomination for US President. In the process, as the Guardian put it:
Trump now looks almost certain to inherit a party he has left bitterly divided through a brand of politics defined by innuendo, race-baiting and outright demagoguery.
Not much better could be said of many of the other Republican candidates.
So why Trump? I think the clue is in the name: his money has trumped everyone else. That and blatant and nasty populism. If ever there was evidence that money and good government are an unlikely mix then this is it.
Could it happen in the UK? Elements of it are, of course. The Conservatives were clearly in breach of the spirit and maybe the letter of election spending law in 2015, as Channel 4 have revealed. They are seeking to limit the spending of their opponents, wholly inappropriately, and where they cannot a gag is being sought instead. The portents for democracy are not good.
And all of this does, at least in part, fly in the face of what many seem to want. Look at the stories about Leicester City: one of the things that appeals to many about their success is that it has not been unduly bought. This is a relatively cheaply assembled team based on talent, team spirit and shared endeavour. Of course there are egos involved; it would be impoissible for it to be otherwise. But what has worked so well is the ability to work together.
The Trump approach and that of the libertarian right is the antithesis of this. That policy of self interest saps the spirit and destroys the collective will on which most things of value are built.
Does Trump worry me in that case? Of ciourse he does, profoundly. I have to hope for the sake of the US and the world that he does not win in November. But I do not discount anything.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
I too am very worried.
I look at the amount of easily led and blissfully ignorant people living in the UK and then scale it up when thinking about America and that’s how you can explain two terms of George Bush Jnr. And even Reagan come to think of it.
But to side with the American voter’s dilemma for a moment – what’s their choice?
Even Obama ended up going to his corporate backers for election funds. Clinton is doing the same now. As Michael Moore puts it: ‘Who’s your Daddy?’.
Trump seems reliant on his own funding stream. But will he really put a stop to the declining middle classes by reversing certain policies rather than say cutting taxes even more?
I suspect it maybe more of the same from each candidate but you never know. Trump the saviour of American democracy? It might happen?
And then you have to go back to decisions more recently made about the external funding of political parties I think made at it’s ‘neutral’ Supreme Court.
American democracy is a basket case – the Founding Fathers would be aghast. I’d like to be in a situation where I could say ‘So what – it’s their business’ but given how ‘USA Inc’ (Government + Corporations) works I fear that their own expansionary tendencies (smash and grab) will have such a damaging effect on the rest of the world.
This is why it is important to fight TTIP through Europe rather than exit and be picked off later. But then, if you have a party in power whose MEPs don’t really believe in Europe and whom have no interest in making it work, what chance is there of that?
I’m sick of these MEPs whinging about Europe. If they were employed in your business – would you keep them on to run YOUR business. I wouldn’t – I’d frog march them out the office straight away. We need people there who are committed to making the EU work and maybe then it can be more accountable and put a stop to the USA’s global bullying.
I too hope that Trump does not win but I fear Bernie supporters may not necessarily back Hillary Clinton. Jill Stein, the green party candidate, might pick up a proportion of Bernie’s supporters. Stein was the green candidate in 2012 and she got 0.36% of the votes cast. I suspect she will get more votes this time around, especially from younger voters looking for something different.
Actually, money didn’t matter in the end: Trump spent a million in Indiana, Cruz and the ‘mainstream’ GOP spent six – and mustered an army of seven thousand footsoldiers to knock on every door.
In some ways, the Indiana Primary is a victory for democracy; at least the money didn’t win.
None of the serious money in American politucs was committed to any of the Republican candidates, up until the very end: all of them were deeply unattractive to the donors.
…And, like all too many victories, no -one asks “And for what?” until the smoke begins to clear.
Perhaps this is a victory for demagoguery, rather than democracy; it is certainly a turn for the worse, and any speculation that Cruz would’ve been worse than Trump is now irrelevant.
So you would rather have Hilary Clinton in whom is clearly mad ‘we came we saw..’ and wants to provoke Russia. On those terms the safety of the world is in better terms who Trump who at least wants good relations with Russia.
Actually I would rather Bernie Sanders
Me too.
On the positive side, although it looks like Sanders bid for nomination is finished, he still has a strong movement that will persist. America is a very divided country and Trump is playing every trick in the book to soak up discontent by misrepresenting the arguments. he’s giving people who are stressed and angry simplistic fodder and this is dangerous. The Right are doing it here as well and the Left is failing to counter it.
As for winning, I suspect Clinton will win, she has Wall Street behind her and so things will continue pretty much as before with the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex and big Pharma/finance. Trump is not a real ‘libertarian’, they are represented by Ron Paul who is a much more articulate voice.
“the Left is failing to counter it.”
I disagree – the student Left, in some places, is becoming as obnoxious as the Right. Thought policing and shrill denunciations are routine.
And while the Tories have had a woeful Mayoral campaign, Sadiq Khan is not above playing racial politics and engaging in egregious lying: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/15/sadiq-khans-version-of-77-meeting-is-at-odds-with-our-recollection
Johnson (I refuse to call him Boris) plus this campaign have convinced me that mayoral races are for egotists first and foremost, and we could, and obviously have, do(ne) without them.
All we can hope for is that Bernie Sanders continues making a political difference that directly affects the Democratic platform. But a Presidential campaign between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is practically a certainty! Reminds me of that old saw: “Never underestimate the power of unanticipated consequences.”
Interesting times!
Interesting analysis of the increasing polarisation of American society and politics, resulting in the likes of Trump and Cruz appearing on the Republican scene and Sanders on the Democratic side. Similar analysis to Richard’s recent post on the Shape of Politics (in the UK).
The final paragraph is applicable to both countries, and many more.
“That could produce a split in society that, euphemistically, we could define as a little difficult to manage. But, again, Trump is not the cause of anything, he is just the unavoidable result of the rising internecine competition within an increasingly poorer society. He may fail in his bid for the presidency, but the social and political factors that created him will remain. And these factors might easily lead to something much worse than Trump if the economic situation deteriorates further, as it probably will. So, where is the institution we call “democracy” going? It is difficult to say, but, in order for democracy to exist, there must exist certain conditions, in particular a reasonably equitable distribution of wealth in society. And this is something that we are rapidly losing. As we slide down”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-the-unavoidable-is-political-polarization-destroying-democracy/5523290
NO REPLIES YET RICHARD ??
PERHAPS EVERYONES STILL IN SHOCK ….
Sometimes I have other things to do
I thought it might be your broadband connection and moving home.
I finally gave broadband again tonight!
Tomorrow I get my new office sorted
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/
Trumps spending thus far is dwarfed by the spending of both Clinton and Sanders on the democrat side, and by Cruz on the Republican side.
Trump has the advantage of being a TV star, like Berlusconi in Italy, whilst CNN and Fox have given him loads of airtime for free.
Leicester’s win is down to King Richard III.
Beware Richards, I say
“Could it happen in the UK?”
It already has, because Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are attempts to shift away from normal mainstream politics, by US standards.
The UK equivalents as I see it would be Nigel Farrage and Jeremy Corbyn, neither would normally be seen as mainstream politicians, but they have both done rather well in recent times.
To compare Corbyn – mainstream 60s and 70s – with a politics wholly unacceptable for decades is absurd
I am rather surprised you don’t think it is possible to compare Corbyn and Sanders.
I meant Corbyn and Farage
Too much haste
Donald The Menace:-
https://www.quora.com/Trump-says-he-would-eliminate-the-U-S-national-debt-of-19-trillion-in-8-years-Is-that-actually-feasible-If-so-what-would-it-take-to-do-so/answer/Andrea-Terzi
There are amazing progressive voices in the US like Elizabeth Warren and Robert Reich – both Sanders supporters! If I were Clinton I would seal the Presidency, then ditch the funders, get the progressives on board and go down in history as the President that restored the American dream. But may be she is interested in something else?
If you have not seen it I recommend The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class by Elizabeth Warren – on YouTube. I find how, the supposedly-greatest country-on-Earth has treated its people for the last 40 years astonishingly shocking, and a warning of what we need to fight to avoid in the UK.
That would require real courage
And it would be brilliant
It would indeed take real courage – the bravery required to take on the American deep state: Wall street, the military industrial complex and the intelligence services.
Let’s be honest: they’d rather have Hilary than Trump, and a Reich, Warren or Sanders wouldn’t make it alive to the White House.
America is beyond hope. But here we can fight. And win.
But the Left is going to have to be far far cleverer than it is now.
Elizabeth Warren is one of a number of sane voices in American politics and deserves to be known -like the others – more widely. What is significant about this is not the topic – the death of middle class America is now well known – what is important is that Warren herself as a leading politician is talking about it in the policy community that is Washington.
As for Clinton – maybe she is more robust than her husband who shall we say may have had certain weaknesses (such as hero-worshipping ex-Goldman Sachs CEOs) and listening to the close friends of Ayn Rand such as Alan Greenspan too much.
May I recommend some American-made documentaries which throws some light on these:
1. My Love Affair with Capitalism (Michael Moore) where you actually get to see the less well know members of the American senate – they seem like real people.
2. The Flaw
3. Inequality for Everyone – Robert Reich.
4. Lifting the Veil: Barack Obama and the Failure of Capitalist Democracy (online).
Can I also recommend a book ‘Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt’ by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco which details the corporate hollowing out of America. This is a very angry and passionate book and when I read it I could not believe that it been written in the United States. Chris Hedges is an outspoken critic of the American dream and why it has gone sour.
The book certainly helps one to understand why Trump is so attractive to American voters. If the current trajectory of American capitalism continues, Trumps popularity can only grow.
Looking at America’s history though, we have to ask if Clinton kicked out the funders and tried to change matters – in fact if anyone dared to do this – what is the likelihood of them being assassinated? I’d say it was vey high.
America is quite possible the elephant room – the biggest failed state in the world – but no-one dare to call it.
I have a lot of time for Elizabeth Warren as she accurately and eloquently describes the problems that the US now faces, but as Charles Adams stated slightly erroneously it is actually the case that we here in the UK have already suffered the same inevitable effects of “de-industrialisation” and a shift to “financialisation” of the economy.
It has only been less visible to the mass of the people here in the UK as a result of the post-war UK political consensus and moderate level of welfare state compensating for some of the worst results.
Whereas in the US the post-war political consensus and minimal level of welfare state has resulted in a much more harsh reality for those at the bottom of society.
However, where I struggle with Warren and to some extent Sanders is that their moral conscience only really seemed to kick-in when it was the “middle classes” who started to suffer. As if there was never a suffering underclass in America that mattered.
There is still to me a moral debate to be had as to why the health of the “middle class” is the best indicator of the health of society.
Whatever happened to the view that a society is measured by how it treats its poorest and weakest members?
Hi Keith
I certainly agree with most of your points – we should care most about the least fortunate.
Warren came to politics late following research on bankruptcy.
I am sure she cares more than most about the least fortunate.
On the UK I agree that we also suffer from over financialisation. My point was rather that currently inequality is less extreme than the US but if we do not act it will continue to increase.
As an aside, almost, how’s about this concoction? From the propaganda department of market society, let me present:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-hidden-virtues-of-income-inequality-and-poor-doors-in-affordable-housing-requirements-2016-05-04
Took my breathe away, anyroad.
This, I suggest, is the real purpose of the US political process, to its ruling class.
Try not to grit your teeth. You’ll need them when you’re older.
I did not follow your advice
Have teeth for one less day now
This is an interesting article to me for several reasons, firstly as it reminds me of the classical (ie. capitalist) marketing courses and texts I had to read as part of my “career development” which always seek to justify such things as “market segmentation” and the existence of “luxury products/services” and “budget products/services” as just a reflection of the inevitable reality of the social divisions within society.
Meeting such needs was of course “normal marketing behaviour” as it is based on the unquestionable economic laws of “supply and demand” and “competition for scarce resources”. The clever marketing people who came up with such new business ideas and concepts were clearly not to blame as marketing and markets are “amoral” and there to be developed/exploited at will.
Which of course is entirely logical if you have only half a brain and choose not to (or are unable/unwilling to) question some of the fundamental assumptions of the capitalist indoctrination exercise being undertaken by schools, colleges and universities across the western world.
And so what of those people who struggle to be completely indoctrinated, who can see through this mire of moral ineptitude in these arguments, who have more intellectual depth and experience than to accept the “amorality” and “inevitability” of the market (financial markets in particular) on society?
There is hope for a better future, but only when a mass accepted intellectual argument and social moral compass has been developed that opens up the broad green tree lined avenue for large numbers of people to take a new and better direction in life.
If not, we are all trapped in the crass immorality that articles such as this promote as the basis for an increasingly divided and hierarchical society.
And none of us with a fully functioning brain will have any teeth left!
Let’s be fair, Richard, Hilary has engaged in her own ‘race-baiting’ – that form which is acceptable to the Left: identity politics. She used this to staggering effect against Bernie.
And I note, with great dismay, that it is well-ensconced within significant parts of the Labour party:
http://afreeleftblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/sadiq-khan-playing-politics-of-race.html
I am appalled when I see Labour positions such as their recent claim that 4,000 BME homeless households was outrageous because it was ”disproportionate” to the 10,000 white homeless households. I could have sworn that was 14,000 families that needed a home. Ditto much of the stuff which comes out of Operation Black Vote and the Runneymede Trust: 20% of BME people in deprivation compared to “just” 8% white. If you break down the raw figures using the 2011 census that equates to (roughly) 440,000 BME people as against 4 million white…
Forgive me but what does success in that situation look like???
It’s 4.4million people who need their lives improving, surely?
The Left needs to give serious thought to this. It is not without sin in the realm of race relations and with further likely crises to come it needs to be bringing people together not playing zero sum games or reminding people of their differences.
I cannot see evidence of racism there
I see evidence of reporting of potential bias
I have real difficulty with your approach
I didn’t say it was racism, Richard, I said it was racial politics.
Talk of ‘percentages’ and ‘likelihoods’ is wholly divisive if you position it as being about white Britons and Black and Asian Britons. We know empirically that some ethnic minorities (British Indians, British Chinese) do far better on average than the white population so why frame it in terms of skin colour? Why deal in percentages when surely, as socialists, we want zero actual real world people living in poverty or without homes? And what of the effect outside those meetings – between actual human beings? Think about how the less informed reader might react to those quotes.
Perhaps I am sensitive to this because I am at University where the American-style identity war is gathering pace. It is an unpleasant environment to be in and I believe it will split the 99%.
As for my approach – well, if wanting to see zero unemployment and homelessness for ALL Britons is problematic, I’m problematic!
There are racial politics as a matter of fact
And many suffer as a result
What is wrong with drawing attention to that?
And why decry it?
I hope you read Ben Cobley’s piece, by the way. Here’s another one on the same topic:
http://afreeleftblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/the-stark-contradiction-at-heart-of.html
“There are racial politics as a matter of fact”
Yes, played by Labour as much anyone else.
“And many suffer as a result”
For example those Britons who have seen where they live transformed by Labour’s mass immigration. And not just white Britons – speak to Caribbeans about their experience of Somali immigration or Eastern European immigration. Or see the 2005 Birmingham riots.
“What is wrong with drawing attention to that?”
Because the reasons are not going to be some systemic issue and will be wholly divisive. Ask many of the Carribeans near me about free movement from Eastern Europe or Somali immigration. You will not like the answers. And the attempt to put even criticism of such an approach off limits is rather troubling. To criticise this type of politiking is actually to invite accusations of racism on one’s self. It has become the modern equivalent of labeling people heretics.
“And why decry it?”
How did Hilary beat Bernie in New York? She played identity politics (heavily tilted to racial grievance) to masterly effect. Indeed, Bernie was regularly positioned as ‘the old white man’.
Now, what did that do for the prospects for a democratic socialist candidate in the US and what does it do for relations between *human beings*?
I really fear the European Left is going to make all the mistakes the Democrats have and at precisely the wrong moment in history.
I really do think you need to state your case better than you have
Others have tried for you
But what precisely are you saying as I am not clear what exactly it is? Right now I get fear and I get racial politics but I do not get evidence, only hearsay, and I do not get explanation
I know I am not fully engaged at present, but I don’t often miss the point, I think, and I suspect I am here
Try again, please
I’m not the only person alarmed by this. You’ve seen Ben Cobley’s articles and Nick Cohen has just written this:
“To say that the Labour party is in crisis because it is ‘too left-wing’ is to miss the point spectacularly. With eyes wide open, and all democratic procedures punctiliously observed, its members have chosen in their tens of thousands to endorse not ‘the left’, but an ugly simulacrum of left-wing politics.
They have gone along with the type of left-winger who flourished in the long boom between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the great recession. The hypocrite who damns oppression, but only if it is committed by western countries. The pseudo-egalitarian who will condemn sexism and homophobia, but not the prejudices of favoured regimes and minorities. The fake anti-racist who will attack the ‘far right’ while echoing the fascist conspiracy theory.
Let us see how their ‘new politics’ are progressing. At the time of going to press, and we accept that this is a provisional tally, Labour has had to suspend Ken Livingstone for invoking Adolf Hitler in the latest of his many attempts to bait and humiliate Jews. Also suspended is Naz Shah, one of its two Bradford MPs, for saying that Israelis should be transported to America. Hanging alongside them on Labour’s drooping dirty-laundry line are a good half-dozen Muslim Labour councillors, suspended for saying that Jews were really behind Islamic State, or for echoing Shah’s call for the ethnic cleansing of Israeli Jews, or for telling Israeli footballers that their country was the new Third Reich.
Cynics dismiss the fuss. There are 2.7 million Muslims and only 260,000 Jews in Britain. If left-wingers alienate Jews, the profit-and-loss account is still in the black, particularly when a large segment of the white bourgeois left is as keen on laying into ‘the Zionists’, as they so daintily call them. It is not true to say all British Muslims want fevered rhetoric against Jews (any more than it is to say that all Jews oppose Corbyn). But in areas with large Muslim minorities, even the Liberal Democrats have played the race card. If Labour doesn’t join them, it will be beaten by them. That’s the ‘new politics’ and we had better get used to it.”
I urge you to take a step back and think about this again.
I will
But not because Nick Cohen says so
And I am not convinced Labour does have an anti-Semitic crisis
The last leader was Jewish, you should note
Richard, I think Phil is referring to racial politics in the way he feels it’s being used as another method of divide and conquer. I didn’t read his comments as indicating that we shouldn’t keep track of, and aggressively oppose, issues and instances of racism. Rather I felt that Phil was expressing his dismay that, as usual, issues are used for political point scoring.
I take your point that racial politics are a fact that shouldn’t be denied. But they are also intrinsically bound up in class. Even if we could somehow magically end racism tomorrow it wouldn’t matter a jot to the life chances of the poorer end of society.
I accept that
But then it’s not just racism that puts some communities there
Thank you, Alastair. I am implaccably opposed to pitching for votes on a communal basis – whether its Zac Goldsmith or Sadiq Khan. It’s one person, one person, one vote. And in any case people hate being patronised as if their identity is the only thing about them.
Richard, having read your further points above I think that this is more a lack of clarity in communication with maybe a variance in priority. In particular where you indicate that you’re not convinced that Labour has an anti-Semitic problem. Yet the MSM are going after it like Labour/The Left have some inherent racial problem that is rapidly worsening. By the way I agree with you on that point quite strongly. But I’m dismayed by the spectrum of factions using this to denigrate Corbyn/Labour/The Left and to try to further their own agendas. Both within and without the Labour party itself.
That’s a perfect example of the perspective that I’ve been reading into Phils posts. I know it’s all politics but I find targeting/attacking perceived voting blocks based on race/colour/gender/religion offensive and divisive. Homogenisation of that type seems inaccurate and can easily misfire.
That’s fair comment
Many good comments here
I lived in the US during the Carter administration and many of my American friends said that they would leave the country if Regan got elected; they didn’t.
About two years ago when I was in Washington DC and flying back home through Regan National airport, I was told not to use that name and refer to it as Washington national airport.
They were lukewarm about Hillary but hoped Elizabeth Warren would stand.
I could almost weep for the US; growing up it was a “Shining City on the Hill” but the ’70s were not so great and disaster struck in 1980 with the Regan victory. Serendipity and luck are underestimated in politics. Carter was undone by the Iranian hostage crisis; Walter Cronkite probably the most respected news anchor of his generation used to finish off the CB news with this is day “157++” of the Iranian Hostage Crisis; possibly this slow drip-drip didn’t help.
Thatcher got lucky with the Falklands; Regan had it easy; the USSR was on the brink of collapse and he got the credit.
The US is broken. The great Neo-Liberal experiment has failed; so change needs to come.
I was very much hoping for Saunders but hopefully he has done enough to awaken many thinking people to the basket case the US has become
Trump ix a Xenophobic Fascist who reminds me very much of Mussolini.
In general Democratic Presidents have never been as good as I hoped and Republicans as bad as I feared- apart from George W and his Neo-Con allies. If the world were fairer they would be tried for war crimes.
I don’t think Trump will be elected but unless 3rd world war is declared, the US is like a super-tanker (large ship) it takes a very long time to move.
What has scared me over the last 6 years has been the concerted campaign by the Conservative party to silence opposition in all its forms. Everything they have done, the hollowing out of the public sector and centralisation of functions like communications and procurement; destruction of Local Government service provision; proposals for fewer MP’s whilst the HoL grows like Topsy; constraints on the reporting of publicly funded science that challenges policy; attacks on Unions; routine smearing of Labour; the Snoopers Charter etc., etc., just flags how this country is sliding into a pretty nasty place.